Deferred
by OpalescentStorm
Summary: What happens to a dream? When there's nothing left? They can't let it stop them, hold them back, make fools of them all. Temari & Tenten & Ino & Hinata & Sakura


_What happens to a dream deferred? _

_  
Does it dry up  
like a raisin in the sun?  
Or fester like a sore—  
And then run?  
Does it stink like rotten meat?  
Or crust and sugar over—  
like a syrupy sweet?_

_  
Maybe it just sags  
like a heavy load. _

_  
Or does it explode? _

_('Harem' by Langston Hughes) _

- - - -

In Suna, dreams don't last too long. The hot desert sun beats down on them, ruthlessly attacking until every last molecule of moisture is sucked up and the result is something dry and dead. So Temari's dreams wilt in a half-moment and are torn up by the arid winds. The most beautiful of things last but a moment in the desert before life is ruthlessly wrested away from them and they become an empty shell, empty hope, empty dreams, emptyemptyempty.

Tenten's dreams pull at the skin, digging and burrowing like maggots or infection. _Cannot–did not even try–was too afraid_ they mock her as the friction catalyzes new pain. And blood oozes out as she aches to become whole again, those dreams that once gave her so much hope now eating away at her from the inside out. Like scars but uglier because she fought for dreams and then lost them and the sores are ugly reminders of what she wanted so badly.

The putrid stench makes her eyes run and her nose itch painfully. Failure, eau de fucking _failure _from her dreams cast aside. All those things that used to make her who she is, where did they go? Somewhere along the way she neglected them and they rotted away from the lack of attention. Because somewhere along the way she decided other things were more important, but now Ino can't remember what because it's dark now and damp and everything's rotted.

All Hinata is now is that syrupy sweetness, the saccharine crust on something that's gone to waste because no one wanted it. Because maybe she was a little two sweet, a little too kind, and she lost track of exactly when, but at some point she gave away her own hopes and wishes to support those of others. Politeness and gentle kindness killed her dreams as, day after day, she told herself that she could be sacrificed for the greater good. It was for the best for all. Except her.

The feeling of failing lays upon Sakura's shoulders, a heavy burden pushing her more towards the ground with ever step she takes. _Sasuke-kun, Naruto... Naruto-kun._ But her words can't stop as the world falls upon her shoulders, and she, Atlas-like, tries to summon the energy to lift it up. She can shatter things into the tiniest pieces when she's at her best, but when she's like this, she's too sluggish to so much as lift an arm, and the heavy dreams she's bearing push her shoulders down towards hell.

- - - -

_And dreams explodes like a whirlwind taking down a forest, like thousands of tons of dynamite compressed into a scroll, like a mind falling to pieces, like the heart after a direct Jyuuken strike, like the earth when all that compressed chakra presses into it. Because they're kunoichi. So what other choice do they have? _

- - - -

Temari digs her heels into the shifting sands as gales tare at her hair and her clothing. The tiny pieces of sand stab into her face and her eyes. She knows how to turn her losses against her enemy. So those winds that ripped her heart to shredded scraps? She unfurls her fan and adds to them until nothing is left standing. This is her vengeance, her creed, her way of getting even with a world that tried to make believe it could hurt her.

With shaking hands, Tenten pours gunpowder from her arsenal onto her wounds and sets it on fire. It's not medically effective–she _knows _this–but it'll stop the oozing and the bleeding for long enough. She grits her teeth against the pain and knows the medic-ninjas will chastise her for the risky move later, but for now, it's good enough. The burning smell of her flesh makes her grit her teeth. And she uses the last of the blood, remnants on the tip of her finger, to open a new scroll to rain steel upon her enemies.

The stench is giving Ino a headache now, but she pushes it out of her mind and forces her way out of a rotting prison, forcing herself to see through the darkness and despite the smell and feel of rotten meat. She casts a wary, angry eye on this filth that's been holding her captive for so long and sees through the lies. Now she forces herself to push it away from her. And her platinum hair smells later, and festering things squish under her fingernails, but she can see the sun after it all. And she blooms like a flower introduced to the sun.

Hinata feels herself rotting from the outside in, the sugar-sweetness keeping her from doing what she needs and what she wants. So she closes her eyes and bites her lips before forcing chakra through every pore on her body. Shattered now is the saccharine crust, replaced by something like confidence. Maybe she's selfish now, but she can see now that being a martyr doesn't help many people, and least of all herself. She can feel herself, raw and tender and strong without the old rotten crust.

In a moment of strength_–weakness_–strength, she pulls herself upward and shrugs off her load, watching dispassionately as it crashes to the ground and leaves a crater where it falls. The world will not fall apart in her absence, she decides as she stretches her muscles to regain the strength. And maybe the world has turned upside-down, because now she realizes she's stronger and more effective when the burden doesn't weigh her down. She leaps up, her energy restored, and swings a fist, shattering the evil in front of her.


End file.
